Outline:
Email purporting to be from Apple Support claims that your iTunes ID has been blocked due to “unusual activity” and you must click a link to verify the ID before you can use it again.
Analysis:
The email is not from Apple and the claim that your account has been blocked is untrue. In fact, the email is yet another phishing scam designed to steal your Apple ID, your credit card numbers, and other personal information.
If you click the link, you will be taken to a fraudulent website that closely mirrors the appearance of the genuine Apple website. Once on the fake site, you will be first asked to log in with your Apple account credentials and then taken to a bogus verification form that asks for more personal and financial information. All of the information you supply on the fake site can be collected by criminals and used to hijack your Apple account and commit credit card fraud and identity theft.
The Apple website includes more information about such phishing scams and how to report them.
Subject: Your iTunes id has been blocked
Dear Valued Customer ,
We recently detected unusual Αctivity on your ΑppleΙD.
To verify this ΙD belοngs to you, checκ the linκ below,
sign in and then fοllow the instructiοns.
Verify_now >
Why you received this email.
Αpple requests verificatiοn whenever an actiοn is selected in the ΙD. Your ΙD cannοt be used until you νerify it.
Αpple_Suppοrt™
Last updated: January 27, 2017
First published: January 27, 2017
By Brett M. Christensen
About Hoax-Slayer
References
Apple ID ‘Security Notice’ Phishing Scam
Phishing & Other Suspicious Emails
Importance Notice
After considerable thought and with an ache in my heart, I have decided that the time has come to close down the Hoax-Slayer website.These days, the site does not generate enough revenue to cover expenses, and I do not have the financial resources to sustain it going forward.
Moreover, I now work long hours in a full-time and physically taxing job, so maintaining and managing the website and publishing new material has become difficult for me.
And finally, after 18 years of writing about scams and hoaxes, I feel that it is time for me to take my fingers off the keyboard and focus on other projects and pastimes.
When I first started Hoax-Slayer, I never dreamed that I would still be working on the project all these years later or that it would become such an important part of my life. It's been a fantastic and engaging experience and one that I will always treasure.
I hope that my work over the years has helped to make the Internet a little safer and thwarted the activities of at least a few scammers and malicious pranksters.
A Big Thank You
I would also like to thank all of those wonderful people who have supported the project by sharing information from the site, contributing examples of scams and hoaxes, offering suggestions, donating funds, or helping behind the scenes.I would especially like to thank David White for his tireless contribution to the Hoax-Slayer Facebook Page over many years. David's support has been invaluable, and I can not thank him enough.
Closing Date
Hoax-Slayer will still be around for a few weeks while I wind things down. The site will go offline on May 31, 2021. While I will not be publishing any new posts, you can still access existing material on the site until the date of closure.Thank you, one and all!
Brett Christensen,
Hoax-Slayer
